My youngest son was three when he was diagnosed with autism. This was in 1997, just before the incidence of autism started its rise. Soon after he became eligible for special education services from my school district. It wasn’t long before I realized that the services weren’t appropriate for him to make progress and requested the district change the program to include the principals of Applied Behavior Analysis. Unfortunately, they refused. I filed for due process to appeal their decision, which required me to retain a special education attorney. Â Thankfully, we prevailed and secured appropriate an appropriate program. My son’s case advocating for the use of ABA was one of the first in Connecticut at the time. This experience provided me a boot camp in navigating the special education system and the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Special Education Act) and inspired my career as a special education advocate.